1. Field of the Invention
A junction box assembly includes a support board, a connector supported at one end by the support board, a separate tubular guide sleeve arranged concentrically about the connector, and a cover having an open bottom chamber receiving the connector, and a top wall containing an opening receiving the upper ends of the guide sleeve and the connector, thereby to afford electrical connection to the connector by an associated second connector.
2. Description of Related Art
Junction boxes have been proposed in the prior art including a plastic housing containing a plurality of connectors that are received in the plastic housing for the connection of electrical conductors of preferably multi-wire cables, whereby each connector is surrounded by a guide sleeve. Examples of such junction boxes are presented by the Bechtold et al U.S. Pat. No. 6,527,599, and the German published application No. DE 103 31 441 A1.
There are designs where the synthetic plastic housing is made in one piece with the guide sleeves. There are also designs where the guide sleeves are made as separate parts from metal and are fixed within in the plastic housing.
The first-mentioned design possesses the disadvantage that relatively expensive tools are needed to be able to make the plastic housing with the integrally molded-on guide sleeves. Another disadvantage consists in that in the case of the individual design, the guide sleeves and the plastic housing, moreover, naturally consist of the same material so that there is no possibility here of selecting materials that would meet the requirements of the guide sleeves, on the one hand, and of the plastic housing, on the other hand, to any particular degree.
The second design possesses the disadvantage that the guide sleeves that are made of metal are comparatively expensive in cost.
The present invention was developed to provide a junction box or distributor that can be manufactured both easily and at reasonable cost, and that offers the possibility of using materials that meet different requirements for the plastic housing, on the one hand, and for the guide sleeves, on the other hand. This problem is solved according to the invention in that the guide sleeves in each case are made as individual parts from plastic and are fixed in the plastic housing. The guide sleeves are thus made of plastic, just as is the plastic housing, whereby one can use differing materials throughout for the mentioned parts.
The plastic housing can be made of a material that ideally meets the special requirements for the plastic housing. The same applies to the guide sleeves, whereby in this case, there may certainly be other requirements to be met so that other materials can be used correspondingly for the production of the guide sleeves. The guide sleeves are non-rotatably fixed by a press-fit within corresponding openings contained in the synthetic plastic housing.
Naturally, other possibilities of attachment are also conceivable, for example, the guide sleeves can also be fixed in a form-locking manner or in an adhesively bonded locking manner in the plastic housing. The guide sleeves are provided at their front end with at least one axially extending cutout in which engages a radially protruding extension arm of a contact insert in a form-locking manner. In this way, one can prevent any twisting or relative rotation between the particular connector and the particular associated guide sleeve. As is known, the guide sleeves can be provided with an interior thread, preferably a metric inside thread.